Every Time I Ever Said I Want to Die Andrea Gibson
âI meant I am willing to do anything to live. Even leave this world forever.
              Even build a new home atop a nebula, stick a straw               into a buried lake on Mars, get tipsy on anti-gravity               and invent new constellations walking the lines                             between undiscovered stars
              When God pulls me over and asks,               Can you touch your nose? I could say,                             What nose?
              Iâd be bodiless, a shadow in reverse,               a patch of light made by the darkness                             I escaped.
The psychology manuals say no one really wants to die. They want relief. They believe they will never find it in this world. That belief could be right. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Or wrong.
One would have to stay to find out. Friend, if you stay, at least we will be together, and I have an extra straw.
              I could show you where the lakes on this planet               are buried. How you did not need light-years               to reach them. The dark years work too.               Sometimes better. Sometimes grief                             is the fastest route to truth.
              In addition to the straw,               I also have a slingshot that fires rock               bottoms directly at the sun until change                             spills from its golden pocketsâ
              thatâs how I got my hands on this               summer afternoon. We can do anything               with it. Sunbathe or scream or forgive ourselves               everything, most especially the thread we could not                             convince to close our wounds.
If your wounds are still open, trust they are doors to an answer, and walk through.
What if we donât have to be healed to be whole? There are holes in every inch of the fabric that makes me who I am,
but pull the string on my back and Iâll say I LOVE YOU and mean it whenever you want.
Come flood my home with your eyes. Iâve read that people scream when they are in pain because screaming
actually lessens the painâ anyone who asks you to hold your tongue is asking you to hold the heaviest thing
in the galaxy. Forget them and remember you can tell me anything about how hard it is to stop flirting with your expiration date.
I understand being wooed by the finish line of sadness. Infinity still sends me nudes every day. I wonât deny she looks amazing,
but Iâm taken. My hand now promised to writing every page of my story except its end. Friend, you are
who taught me that a difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one. Joy is just easier to carry than sorrow, and you could lift a city
from how long youâve spent holding whatâs been nearly impossible to hold. This world needs those who know
how to do that. Those who can find a tunnel with no light at the end of it and hold it up like a telescope
to show that the darkness contains many truths that can bring the light to its knees. Grief astronomer,
adjust the lens, look close. Tell us what you see.














